The High School of Music & Art (M&A), informally known as "The Castle on the Hill," was a pioneering public specialized high school established in Manhattan in 1936 by New York City Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia. He considered its creation his "most hopeful accomplishment," designing it as a magnet school to develop talents in art and music. Located at 443-465 West 135th Street in a distinctive Gothic Revival building, M&A operated independently until a sister institution, the High School of Performing Arts, was founded in 1947 to focus on dance.
These two acclaimed schools began a two-campus collaboration in 1961 and fully merged in 1984, forming the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. Over its nearly five-decade history, M&A produced an impressive roster of alumni, including Mad magazine artists Al Jaffee and Harvey Kurtzman, actor Billy Dee Williams, KISS co-founder Paul Stanley, and acclaimed writer Jonathan Lethem, among many others.